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We're not going to terraform Mars, but we're doing a good job of venusforming Earth.
(fediscience.org)
this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2024
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We will most likely always have terrorism and wars. That's not an argument against letting wealthy individuals fund a private space race.
Yes it is! Right now no one can hurtle an asteroid at earth to end it instantly. When space mining takes off that's a very real threat.
I'm not sure space mining is what causes asteroids. Dinosaurs didn't have a space program to my knowledge.
Space mining can absolutely cause asteroids strikes. It only hasn't done it yet because we haven't done any asteroid mining yet. A big part of asteroid mining operations will likely be asteroid herding, bringing all the asteroids you want to the same place where they can be processed. But moving asteroids around is a potentially dangerous activity.
That said, space is really really really big... It's really hard for two things to hit each other on accident. If you're collecting asteroids at a high earth orbit, the chance of them accidentally hitting earth instead is extremely low. You have to miss your target by over 100,000 miles. Which would be... a monumental failure.
He meant the budget spent on space is enormous and there are more urgent priorities on Earth solve so he does get it.
We already have Mars populated by human-made robots, and one going to Europa moon, terraforming means you're thinking of making it habitable for humans, a huge difference from sending robots to do researches to understand better the moons/asteroids/planets.
The point you try saying his argument which seems against billionaires to be invalid instead of arguing against any other point he made just points out your focus is being an apologist for the wealthy to keep doing what they do best, starve and explore everyone else.
It's private wealth, not government funding. They're free to use their wealth how ever they see fit as long as it's legal.
Ad-hominem is not argument to the contrary either.
Great argument for and example of how the US government isn't taxing wealth nearly enough, if we have homeless people and billionaires funding sci fi fantasies for their own amusement in the same country.
Asteroid impact can solve homelesness too.
I still think populating other planets is a worthy cause. We should do that while taxing the billionaires more.